Mitsubishi MD crosses Simpson Desert in Outlander PHEV

[erad]

Shopping trolley wrote, in part "I know of 1 other pumped hydro being proposed in Qld aiming to be operational in 2026. Qld Government has announced that they are looking for another."

Out of interest, where is the other one? Years ago, I was part of a team which did a feasibility study of pumped storage in SE Qld. From memory, there were about 10 sites, all f them on the coastal escarpment. One of the problems is that when someone hears about a possible site, they buy up the land and then demand a fortune for a developer to buy it back from them. And then there are the greenies....

Dee Tee commented about Pumped Hydro lagging. One of the problems, apart from the massive capital expenditure, is the long lead time to get the infrastructure in place. It takes years to build a dam, even a relatively small dam. For a typical Hydro or pumped Hydro scheme, you look at about 8 - 10 years. Kidman project is brilliant and very fast, and a n excellent use of an abandoned mine.

[DeeTee]

Big batteries are the new gold rush. The Tesla Big Battery at Hornsdale cost $90m and earned $88m in its first 2 years, including $27m in 17 days when a connector went out. I bet it makes a shed load of money every time a coal fired plant blows up or goes unexpectedly offline and the grid has to be stabilised. Amazing ROI and very fast to get into operation - and upgrade. The future is electric.

[Shopping Trolley]

Shopping trolley wrote, in part "I know of 1 other pumped hydro being proposed in Qld aiming to be operational in 2026. Qld Government has announced that they are looking for another."

Out of interest, where is the other one? Years ago, I was part of a team which did a feasibility study of pumped storage in SE Qld. From memory, there were about 10 sites, all f them on the coastal escarpment. One of the problems is that when someone hears about a possible site, they buy up the land and then demand a fortune for a developer to buy it back from them. And then there are the greenies....

Dee Tee commented about Pumped Hydro lagging. One of the problems, apart from the massive capital expenditure, is the long lead time to get the infrastructure in place. It takes years to build a dam, even a relatively small dam. For a typical Hydro or pumped Hydro scheme, you look at about 8 - 10 years. Kidman project is brilliant and very fast, and a n excellent use of an abandoned mine.

It is somewhere near Toowoomba. I'm not sure of the details by I think Toowoomba Council is the proponent.

Pumped Hydro certainly has a place in Australia as we transition away from coal particularly to restart the grid when a failure trips the grid. Wivenhoe pumped hydro did the balancing to turn Qld and northern NSW on after Callide shat itself. As no one is investing in coal fired power stations anymore, they will continue to become more unreliable and major failures will become more common. It is interesting that the current electricity problems on the east coast were triggered by 3 large coal fired units being down at the same time but it is never mentioned in the news.

[redbruce]

Just did the Simpson, did the whole lot West to East in Hi Range except for Big Red. Nothing hard about it!
Dave

TBF arguably you did it under the best sand conditions for years with all this rain about so atypical, including all the greenery.

[Dicko1]

2022 will be the 7th year in a row that the large gas and oil companies will pay no tax. I would have thought that seeing they are always in the red it would be a waste of time being involved in the business. Board members and stock holders must be furious with the constant loss and lack of dividends. ......

[Shopping Trolley]

2022 will be the 7th year in a row that the large gas and oil companies will pay no tax. I would have thought that seeing they are always in the red it would be a waste of time being involved in the business. Board members and stock holders must be furious with the constant loss and lack of dividends. ......

F the board members. What about the tax payers who have to cover the difference. What about those on the east coast who are paying higher prices because these gas companies have sold more than they produce and therefore are buying gas out of the domestic market to sell overseas.

[Dicko1]

F the board members. What about the tax payers who have to cover the difference. What about those on the east coast who are paying higher prices because these gas companies have sold more than they produce and therefore are buying gas out of the domestic market to sell overseas.

My post was pure sarcasm mate. It just reinforces my perception of all pollies being complete scum bags when it comes to looking after the nations people who put them in power to run the country efficiently and for our benefit...not overseas corporations and foreign countries....

No mention in the original article as to whether or not they used all electric or a combination. Would not have been hard to have a large generator on a trailer from which to charge the vehicle. Doesn't really matter as it shows that ev,s will be adaptable...as stated..84% of people use the electric side of the vehicle.

[nj swb]

No mention in the original article as to whether or not they used all electric or a combination. Would not have been hard to have a large generator on a trailer from which to charge the vehicle.

Mitsubishi are trying to raise awareness of Plug-in Hybrid EVs, because our motoring media are too stupid to understand the benefits, much less explain them to the great unwashed. Why would they attempt to cross the Simpson in pure EV mode?

To do so would defeat the purpose of the technology - the ability to run it like a traditional plug-in BEV for daily suburban commuting, without the range anxiety. Alternatively, all the benefits of the original Hybrid style vehicle (as made famous by Toyota), with greater range on battery alone, plus the ability to charge from the grid. Whichever way you choose to look at it, I say it offers the best of both worlds.

Of course they ran it as a hybrid.

Has anybody seen any mention of the amount of fuel they used? I'd love to know how it would compare against a similar sized petrol engine vehicle.

[old Jack]

Mitsubishi are trying to raise awareness of Plug-in Hybrid EVs, because our motoring media are too stupid to understand the benefits, much less explain them to the great unwashed. Why would they attempt to cross the Simpson in pure EV mode?

To do so would defeat the purpose of the technology - the ability to run it like a traditional plug-in BEV for daily suburban commuting, without the range anxiety. Alternatively, all the benefits of the original Hybrid style vehicle (as made famous by Toyota), with greater range on battery alone, plus the ability to charge from the grid. Whichever way you choose to look at it, I say it offers the best of both worlds.

Of course they ran it as a hybrid.

Has anybody seen any mention of the amount of fuel they used? I'd love to know how it would compare against a similar sized petrol engine vehicle.

The ICE on the Outlander PHEV should be running at peak efficiency when it is driving the generator that provides electrical power to the 2 electric wheel drive motors and the battery when required, it should in theory, use less fuel than a conventional ICE which is providing power to the vehicle wheels via a gearbox and differentials.

I too would be interested in knowing how much fuel the PHEV used and what weight the vehicle was carrying.

I have no doubt that this form of hybrid is the future, but will will need to wait a few more years before we see this in a real off road 4wd, by then the engine could well be hydrogen powered.

Our town car is a Toyota Prius C, and around town it gets between 3.9 to 4.5 litres per 100kms and the EV drive component accounts for between 45% and 47% of the energy used .
However if we do even a short country trip at highway speeds then the fuel consumption increases to about 5.2 to 5.4 litres per 100kms because there is little regenerative braking and the higher vehicle speed.
When the Prius's ICE cuts in it drives the wheels via a gearbox and differential as well as charging the battery so the engine rpm varies with vehicle speed and gear used.

OJ.

[nj swb]

In other news...

Tesla battery fails in Queensland outage

In a separate judgement, Justice Besanko fined Hornsdale Power Reserve --- which owns the 150-megawatt Tesla battery at Jamestown -- $900,000 for failing to provide grid stabilisation services that it had been contracted to provide.

The failure was identified when an unexpected outage at the Kogan Creek coal plant in Queensland in 2019 caused grid disturbances.

At the time, the battery had been paid to be on stand-by to rapidly produce power to help restabilise the grid in the event of such outages.

"In October 2019, there was an unplanned outage at Kogan Creek Power Station in Queensland," Justice Besanko said.

"In response to the Kogan Creek event, the power system frequency fell, and Hornsdale Power Reserve was required to deliver fast raise services in accordance with the amount it was enabled to provide."

But he said the battery did not power up when needed.

The court heard that investigations after the Kogan Creek incident had revealed the battery had been unwittingly been under-delivering on promised stability services since Tesla had performed a firmware update in July 2019.

After the event, the battery's owner agreed to repay more than $3.3 million it had received for providing contingency services that it had not, in fact delivered, over a four-month period.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-...ches/101190674

Old Skool generators simply spin. Nu teknolojy only werks wen itz programd proper.

[disco stu]

Here comes another "never update your firmware" comment!

[nj swb]

Here comes another "never update your firmware" comment!

I was thinking more a rant about software updates that over-write your settings. It's frustrating enough when it impinges on my web-wheeling, but when there are millions of dollars at stake?

Don't get me started on programmers!

Remember that this snafu was courtesy of a company that wants us to trust their technology to drive for us.

[disco stu]

Yeah, that's why you should "never update your OS"

Someone dropped the ball on that one it appears. Wonder if they didn't bother checking things, expensive mistake all the same. Only fair they're not paid if service doesn't deliver

[Shopping Trolley]

In other news...



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-...ches/101190674

Old Skool generators simply spin. Nu teknolojy only werks wen itz programd proper.

Our current electricity supply problems are because the Old Skool generators simply don't spin (well 3 at the moment aren't spinning). Interesting that they caught Hornsdale because Kogan Creek shit itself again. Our newest and most unreliable coal fired station.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-...icity%20market

Judging by those fines Queenslanders better get ready to pick up the bill when CS Energy cop the fine for Callide C.